Rejection
by Timothy D
Summary: A side story to my story Reincarnation. Explores a bit of Vlad's backstory including the reasons he is the way he is. One shot.


**Hey guys! Here's that one shot side story I talked about in Reincarnation. This story explores Vlad's backstory, his confrontation with his dark side, and the events that lead him to commit his evil acts. Enjoy. Disclaimer: The following is a non profit fan based story. Danny Phantom is owned by Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon. Please support the official release.**

It's amazing what rejection can do to a person. In our hunter gatherer past, being ostracized from our tribes was akin to a death sentence, as we were unlikely to survive for long alone. Rejection really hurts but most rejections inflict damage to our psychological well-being that goes way beyond mere emotional pain. That's something that Vlad knew all too well. To the average person, Vlad had everything a person could want. Excessive wealth, power, prestige, fame, you name it he had it.

But there was one thing Vlad wanted that he couldn't get no matter how much money he had. The love of Maddie Fenton. Vlad supposed that being turned down was perhaps the start of his path of evil.

Vlad's life had never been easy. His mother had died during childbirth and his father coped with the loss by drinking. Vlad's father loved him but when he fell under the influence of the bottle, there was often much physical and emotional abuse. Several times, his father would whip him with the belt for the most minor of infractions or burn his cheek with cigarettes. When he was too buzzed to beat him, his father would belittle and berate him.

Despite the abuse he put up with, Vlad didn't hold any animosity or ill feelings towards his father. Quite the opposite, Vlad felt sorry for him. He was a man grieving for his dead wife who didn't know have a healthy way to cope with these feelings. Furthermore, there was one thing his dad told him that was forever ingrained in Vlad's brain that he would always be grateful for.

"Never take life as a joke, Vladmir. Never let your guard down and never trust anybody but yourself. You can't even trust me. You may find the one person or thing that fills your life with joy and you'll think life can't possibly get any better. But then life will hit you the cold hard bitch slap of reality and remind you who's boss" His father told him, slurring his words to the point they were barely intelligible. "But you can't be afraid. You've got be confident, get back up and slap life across the face to show you can take anything it throws at you. If you want something, take it, by any means necessary"

This speech would later be the basis of Vlad's arrogant attitude later in life. At first Vlad took it as one of his dad's drunken ramblings. Oh how Vlad wished he had listened to his father earlier. Knowing his father wouldn't be able to help him pay his way through college, Vlad applied himself in school, acing every class with almost perfect scores. It was here that he first met Jack and Maddie. From the moment he laid eyes on her, he was smittened with her.

For the next nine years, the three of them were the best of friends and an unseperable trio. Then in his junior year of high school, Vlad lost his father to a drunk driving accident. With very little money, Vlad was forced to sell most of his family's possessions in order to have a place to stay. Always friendly, Jack allowed Vlad to live with him.

There was a light at the end of the tunnel though, as Vlad was accepted to University of Wisconsin-Madison on a full scholarship alongside he best friends. However a little tension was starting to build between Jack and Vlad for the affections of Maddie. As friends do though, they managed to resolve their issues. Everything was good until their last year of college, when the ghost portal prototype incident occured. Six months later, Vlad's world came crashing down. Vlad still remembered the moment as if it happened just yesterday.

_*Six months. Six long months since that idiot Jack had disfigured his face. The ecto acne had cleared up and his face was now more or less the same. Now Vlad could get back on track and do what he had been planning to do before the incident. Tell Maddie his true feelings and confess his love to her. Immediately after being discharged from the hospital, he called Maddie and asked her to meet him in the park.*_

_*Maddie agreed. Vlad put on his nicest clothes and a splash of cologne. He hurried to the park and waited patiently for Maddie to arrive. Finally after a couple minutes he saw his beloved approaching.*_

_*"Hello, Maddie, you look wonderful as usual" Vlad greeted.*_

_*"Thanks Vlad, you look wonderful yourself" Maddie said.*_

_*After a short silence, the two said almost simultaneously "I have something important to tell you!"*_

_*"You first" said Vlad.*_

_*"OK, here goes; I'm going out with Jack" Maddie said.*_

_*In an instant Vlad's heart shattered. Jack, his supposed best friend, the one he first told about his crush on Maddie, not only gave him ecto acne; but then went and betrayed him while he was in the hospital and hooked up with the love of his life.*_

_*"Now what was that you wanted to say to me?" Maddie asked.*_

_*"Oh, never mind, it was nothing" Vlad said, hiding his heartbreak with a fake smile.*_

_*At just that moment, Jack came running along.*_

_*"Hey, V-Man, glad to see you're out of the hospital!" Jack greeted, putting his arm around Maddie. "We still on for our date tonight?"*_

_*"Of course" Maddie said. "Would you like to join us Vlad?"*_

_*"No, no, you two have a good time" Vlad said, fighting back tears.*_

_*"OK, we'll see you later then" Jack said as he ran off with Maddie, leaving Vlad alone to mend his broken heart.*_

_*As soon as they were out of sight, Vlad broke down into tears. He spent years trying to tell Maddie just how he felt only for her to be stolen right from under his nose from someone he thought was his friend.*_

That day, that event and the things that lead up to it left a vicious scar on Vlad's heart. It was at that moment that his father's words came back to him. He tried to move on from the rejection, tried to put it behind him, but even after 20 years Vlad was still in love with Maddie Fenton. Several times during those twenty years, he tried to forgive Jack but just couldn't find it in his heart to do so. Jack had taken more from him than just the love of his life. He had taken away his social life, any semblance of normality in his life, not to mention half his life.

When Vlad first discovered his powers, he was distraught. He was a freak. He defied the laws of nature merely by existing. Like Schrodinger's Cat, he was dead, yet alive at the same time. But as he got used to his abilities, Vlad felt a feeling that was new to him: superiority.

He was better than any mere human and ghost. He could spit Death in the eye, yet blend in without having to worry about persecution. What human could stand a chance against him? Who could possibly match him in power?

After college, Vlad found himself with another problem. He had a degree in business, but had no direction. He had no idea of where to go with his life. Hell, he didn't even have a home to stay in. What was he going to do about that problem?

_*"Isn't the answer obvious?" A voice in his head asked. "With your newfound abilities, you can take anything you want"*_

"Wh-who's there?" Vlad asked, looking around desperate to find the source of the voice.

_*"Why, it's me of course or should I say you" the voice replied. "Or rather the other half of you; your dark half"*_

"The other me?" Vlad asked.

_*"Jesus, did I stutter?" The voice replied in irritation. "Listen, just rob a bank or something. You can easily go invisible and intangable, walk through the walls into the safe and walk out with a couple thousand dollars*_

"But isn't that" Vlad started to ask.

_*"Stealing, yes" the voice replied. "Do you want to eat tonight?"*_

Vlad nodded as his stomach started to growl.

_*"It's easy and the best part is no one can stop you" the voice said. "Why do you care about whether you're stealing from people? They wouldn't give a damn about you so what do you say?"*_

Vlad pondered for a minute and having no other alternatives, reluctantly agreed. The job was actually a lot easier than the voice made it sound. Vlad was in and out in less than half a minute. He had managed to pocket $7000 so he could at least stay in a decent hotel for tonight.

_*"See? Easy as cake" the voice said.*_

"I'm still kind of unsure about this" Vlad said.

_*"Remember what your fat bastard of a father told you?" The voice replied. "As much of an asshole as he was, he was right. You ignored his advice and look where it got you: Heartbroken and betrayed by your best friend with freaky powers that makes you an outcast"*_

Vlad's eyes became dangerously narrow and he unknownly transformed into his ghost form. At this point the only real difference was his eye color and his pale green skin.

_*"Good God other me, you think maybe you could change up your appearance in this form so maybe the police can't find you" The voice suggested upon seeing Vlad's reflection.*_

"You're right, it wouldn't be exactly wise to fly around without disguising myself" Vlad said.

Vlad modeled him ghost half after Dracula. Partly as a homage to the novel, mostly to appear intimidating. He dubbed himself Plasmius. This was his oppurtunity. Life had made him a whipping boy. Treated him like a mouse, dangling cheese in front of his face only to yank it away. Now there was nothing to stand in his way of taking what was rightfully his. And maybe, just maybe, if he played his cards right, he could convince Maddie to leave Jack and come to him.

He started out small, robbing local banks. Usually the take was between $5000-$13000. He was in and out without a trace. Then he started moving up, robbing big time banks. The take increased to $50000-100000. This continued until he discovered his ability to overshadow people.

Vlad began possessing wealthy tycoons and getting them to sign over their businesses to him. Oftentimes, they'd wake up with no recollection of signing over their companies. With his newfound wealth, Vlad covered up their allegations. When they refused to keep silent, he'd resort to unsavory methods to get them out of his hair.

Blackmail, kidnapping, coercion, but never murder. The voice often helped and guided him through the process. If anyone knew about the voice, they would assume Vlad was being corrupted by a demon or something. In truth though, Vlad was either keeping the voice in check or doing something even worse than what the voice suggested.

After a few years, VladCo was one of the largest companies on the planet. It was a business firm, software developer, and even weapons supplier. Despite all the lives he potentially ruined, or the lives he indirectly ended as a weapons developer, Vlad had a clear conscience. He didn't care who he hurt.

To him, this was years in the making. After years of being pissed on, spit on, having an potential happiness taken away, he was finally taking back what was his. But mostly, he was doing this for one person. The love that he had lost, Maddie Fenton.

It was also during this time that he began working on a Ghost Portal of his own. Vlad fought many different ghosts but by now was so good with his ghost powers that he easily managed to defeat them. Several of the ghosts, being former humans (some of whom just wanted to provide money for their family from beyond the grave) took up his offer to work for them. He also studied ghosts intensely so he could have a better understanding of his own powers. He discovered that it was possible to kill a ghost, but that it was extremely difficult. He also found out that each time you beat a ghost nearly to death, that that ghost would get stronger upon healing.

As he accumulated his wealth, he gained everything that would make a normal man content. He had enough money to last for hundreds of years. He had lots of power since he held a majority of stock in over 50% of every global corporation on the planet. He had more sex in one day than most men would have in a lifetime. All he had to do was look in their direction, and harem of women would happily spread their legs.

But it didn't fill the void in his heart. She appeared in her dreams every night, fulfilling the fantasies Vlad knew would never happen as long as Jack was in the way. But with his fame, money, and power, Maddie would be a fool to turn him down in favor of Jack.

_*"Are you sure about this?" The voice asked.*_

"Absolutely positive" Vlad replied.

_*"What if she says no?" The voice asked.*_

"She won't say no" Vlad assured him.

_*"If you want Maddie to be your wife, you're going to have to kill Jack Fenton" the voice tried to convince him.*_

"But Jack's our friend" Vlad protested. "And if he hadn't caused the accident, I would've never gained my powers"

Even though truthfully, he would gladly give up everything (his money, fame, and powers) without a second thought if it meant gaining Maddie's love.

_*"Yeah, he's our friend" the voice scoffed. "A friend who put us in the hospital and stole the woman of our dreams"*_

"Trust me, everything will turn out fine" Vlad said.

His plans came to a screeching halt when he discovered that Maddie had two kids.

_*"Wow genius, you honestly didn't consider the possibility that maybe she'd have kids" the voice snarked. "I mean, they've only been together for 20 years!"*_

Knowing that Maddie would never seperate her kids from their father for him, Vlad revised his plan. He wanted to spare Jack but he had no other choice but to kill him. Although admittedly, he wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over committing the deed. Then again, if he could humiliate the ghost hunter, perhaps his family would be so ashamed and disgusted with him that they'd volunteerily leave him.

_*"Yeah, keep dreaming" the voice told him.*_

Vlad ignored him and decided he would only kill Jack only if necessary. When the Fentons arrived, Vlad was on his best behavior. He acted polite and affable as if he wasn't plotting to kill one of the only two people who still considered him a friend. He was still bitter about the incident, but tried to push it out of his mind.

The plan hit another unexpected snag when Vlad found himself fighting another ghost. After easily handing the ghost his rear end, Vlad was surprised to discover that this ghost, Danny Phantom, was the son of the man he was trying to kill. It was the icing on the cake. If only Vlad could convince the young boy to renounce his father and join his side, it would add insult to injury.

Vlad didn't let Danny know that he knew his secret. Instead the next day, he sent Danny down to the basement, where Danny would be captured by one of his hired ghosts Skulker. When Danny was brought before him, Vlad revealed his identity, in hopes it would get Danny to trust him. When he told Danny his plans, Vlad was surprised when the boy rejected his offer to be his apprentice. Vlad was persistent though and listed Jack's multiple flaws in hopes maybe it would convince the boy to reconsider.

Danny however stoid by his choice. Vlad left him there before going to carry out his plan. Things got ugly and Vlad ended up in a fight with Jack. Plasmius expected an easy fight but was shocked when Jack turned out to be a more competent fighter than Vlad expected. Vlad was getting his butt handed to him and was left with a lack of options.

_*"Screw this, just kidnap Maddie" The voice told him.*_

"What?! Are you crazy?!" Vlad replied. "She'd want nothing to do with me if I abducted her!"

_*"That's why you take her to some place undisclosed, lock her up, and then go back and kill Jack. Then turn duplicate yourself, get defeated by your duplicate, turn human and go "save" her. Inform her of Jack's unfortunate demise and Maddie will be all yours" the voice told him.*_

"I like the way you think" Vlad said with a smirk.

_*"What would you do without me?" The voice asked rhetorically.*_

Vlad flew over and grabbed Maddie, but before he could leave he was confronted by Jack and Danny Phantom. Jack got Maddie to safety while Danny tussled with Vlad. This time Danny managed to hold his own against Plasmius. Eventually Danny had Vlad right where he wanted him and threatened to reveal both their identities if Vlad didn't give up, which would ruin any small chance Vlad had with Maddie forever.

"Exploiting your enemy's love and turning it against them, I'm impressed" Vlad said. "Alright, you win, I surrender; but this won't be the last time we meet"

After everything had been cleaned up and the Fentons left, Vlad had a smirk on his face.

_*"What are you smiling about?" Vlad's dark side asked. "In can you haven't noticed, our plan which took almost a year to prepare just blew up in our face and was foiled by a 14 year old boy.*_

"Yes, but we might've found ourselves the perfect apprentice" Vlad replied. "He may be weak and he definitely needs more training, but he's quit cunning and impressive for someone who appears to have just recently gained his powers."

_*"Good luck convincing him to join us," The voice scoffed. "Danny made it quite clear he wanted nothing to do with us"*_

"Don't worry, he'll come to his senses eventually" Vlad tried to convince Dark Vlad. "But first we need to test him and I know just how to do it"

Vlad sent several ghosts to Amity Park, each one testing Danny's abilities. Despite times where the odds were almost overwhelming and even sometimes where Danny would be beaten to the brink of death, Danny would always manage to come back and win. Each time he would grow stronger and more resilent.

Ghosts weren't the only foes Vlad threw at Danny. Vlad found the perfect girl to turn against Danny. A teenager named Valerie Gray. Sending her a technologically advanced ghost hunting suit, Vlad sat back and watched. Despite the challenge, Danny managed to defeat the Red Huntress as well.

Vlad made a next confronted Danny when he staged a plan that involved the inconspicuous "DALV" group ("Vlad" backwards) inviting Maddie and Danny to a mother/son science convention in Florida.

_*"Really smart, genius; spelling your name backwards, that's totally not a red flag" Dark Vlad told him.*_

"Well it worked, didn't it?" Vlad replied.

_*"No offense, but if Maddie is this easy to fool, how could we have possibly lost her to Jack?" The voice asked.*_

"Maddie is a very intelligent woman and besides she doesn't have any reason not to trust us so even if she does know it's us, she has no reason to turn down the offer" Vlad rationalized.

When Maddie takes a reluctant Danny along as an attempt to bond with him, the two are both tricked into parachuting out of their plane, conveniently finding themselves at Vlad's Rocky Mountain retreat. There, Vlad attempts to convince them both to stay with him by confessing his undying love for Maddie. They refuse and storm off into the woods.

Vlad attempts to chase them both back by means of sending his mutated ghost animals after them- the bodies of which can be seen mounted in his hunting-lodge style living room. While Maddie is sleeping in her tent,

Danny is captured and confronted by Vlad, who shorts out Danny's powers for a set period of time with a device he invented, the "Plasmius Maximus", and leaves him at the mercy of his ghost animals. However, Danny is saved by his mother and, with little choice, is forced to return to Vlad's home to find a means to get back to Amity Park. Maddie uses her charm on Vlad to find a phone, which makes Danny sick. She goes off to make the call while Danny, left alone with Vlad, falsely declares him as his "new dad" to let his guard down. Successfully tricking Vlad by setting back his clock, he wraps the Specter Deflector around Vlad, which weakens him considerably for a fairer fight. Danny ultimately defeats Vlad by convincing the ghosts of the animals that Vlad had killed to turn against him, as well as disabling his powers with the Plasmius Maximus.

His next genius plan involved humiliating Jack by putting a bounty on Danny Phantom's head and hiring several more competent ghost hunters to join in. He also used this as distraction while he dismantled the Fentons' Ghost Portal. Plasmius later confronts and brutally beats Danny, revealing his intentions before leaving. What he didn't plan on was Danny allowing himself to be captured by his dad and teaming up with him to fight him. Vlad ends up the one humiliated when Jack beats him up with the Ghost Gauntlets and tosses him in the Ghost Zone.

Vlad's next plan to steal the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage from the Ghost King Pariah Dark ended in disaster when Vlad ended up accidentally releasing the Ghost King. Vlad ended up calling a truce with Danny and teamed up with him to defeat Pariah and seal him in the sarcophagus once again.

After several more failed attempts at stealing Jack's family and gaining Danny as a son, Vlad started falling into a depression. He caught a break when one of his research facilities made a breakthrough regarding human cloning. Vlad took the data and immediately went to work on creating his own clone of Danny. In order to do so, he needed DNA from both Danny and another female. Vlad decided that the best choice would be Samantha Manson, the girl Danny was always hanging out with.

After months of trying and creating only unstable clones who would melt away after a few seconds, Vlad finally created a solid clone. Only problem was that she was unstable like the other clones and was a girl. He eventually uses her in helping to capture Danny himself, planning to destroy her after he was finished. However, Danielle betrays Vlad after seeing who her "father" truly was, a man who didn't care at all about her and saw her as nothing more than a tool. Siding with her "cousin" Danny, the two attack Vlad, causing him to actually collide with the main, "primary" clone, destroying him. Gravely upset over the loss of his most stable creation, Vlad was seconds away from killing Danielle if not for Danny's ghostly wail, Sam and Tucker's timely rescue, and Danielle's own insertion.

It was at this point, Vlad began seeing Danny as simply another anemy.

_*"See, what did I tell you?" Dark Vlad gloated. "You wasted all your time trying to gain him as the perfect son, only for him to fight against you every time. Now I say you put an end to this foolishness and kill him"*_

"No, killing him would be too simple, let's make his life hell instead" Vlad said, although the only reason he agreed to spare Danny was because he still had a bit of hope and still saw him as a misguided youth who needed his help.

After a series of pranks between Vlad and Danny, the former runs for mayor of Amity Park, winning by overshadowing the voters and making them choose him. He then makes life miserable for Danny by banning technology and Danny Phantom, installing school uniforms, and tearing down the Nasty Burger to make way for a new restaurant, "McMasters", from which teenagers are banned. Danny eventually apologizes for his pranks, but Vlad refuses to stop ruining his life, leading Danny to try and announce to the public that Masters and Plasmius are the same. This fails when a Plasmius double appears in front of Danny, the public, and a human Vlad Masters. While the duplicate and Danny fight, Vlad, trying to make himself look good in public, attempts to kill his Plasmius double until Danny overshadows it and flies him to Vlad's limo just as the mayor opens fire. Pulled from the wreckage is an injured Danny Fenton, and an angry public blames Vlad for hurting an innocent child. As a result, he goes into damage-control mode and turns everything back to normal, his battle with Danny far from over.

Upon Danielle's return, Vlad hires Valerie to capture her for him. With her under his possession once again, he planned to dissolve her entire body to study her remains in order to create a better, more functional clone. Danny, managing to gain help from a hesitant Valerie, stops him in time, saves Dani's life and warns Vlad to leave her be. However the fight with Dani, Danny and Valerie ended with Vlad's mansion being destroyed.

After this Vlad snapped. His anger, rage, jealousy, hatred built up making Dark Vlad more powerful. He was sick of everything. This world was his for the taking and their wasn't a soul alive or dead that could stop him, except for Danny. Vlad wanted that pest out of his hair permanently, but he didn't want to kill him.

Vlad wanted Danny to feel the pain he felt. He wanted to bring Danny's world crashing down. To break his spirit to the point he wouldn't have the strength and conviction he once had that enabled him to repeatedly defeat Vlad. But how?

_*"Isn't it obvious? Haven't you been paying attention? Obviously that girl means more to him than anything" Dark Vlad told him. "Kill her and Danny will be out of your hair forever"*_

"But she's kind of innocent in all of this" Vlad said.

_*"Innocent? She's played a role in your defeat at Danny's hands several times along with that boy who keeps hacking into your computer" Dark Vlad reminded him.*_

Dark Vlad was right. And even if she was innocent, if it meant getting rid of Danny, then so be it. Vlad wondered if God would try and stop him from taking over the world he created once Danny was out of the way. He wondered if God could even do so.

Vlad went down to his Ghost Portal to recruit some help. As he prepared to destroy Danny's life and end another's he wondered: Why am I doing this? Was it really for Maddie's affection? Was this really stemming from a painful rejection? When he took over the world, Vlad doubted Maddie would want anything to do with him.

_*"Does it really matter?" Dark Vlad asked. "Remember: If you want something, take it, by **any means necessary.**_*

Vlad nodded in agreement and entered the Ghost Zone, laughing. He'd been trying to be a nice guy, held back his dark side, stopped himself from going too far. But that Vlad was no more. Vlad embraced his dark half and wasn't going to let anything stop him. And truthfully, he was jealous of Danny. He had a loving, caring (if a little disfunctional) family and he was in love with a girl who returned those feelings and would never leave him, things that Vlad didn't have.

It was time Vlad wiped that smug, arrogant smile off of his face and teach him the true meaning of pain.


End file.
